


The Lunar Goose Girl

by hufflepuff



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Angry Geese, Canon, Winter fanfiction contest, glamour, snarky Scarlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuff/pseuds/hufflepuff
Summary: Written for the Winter fanfiction contest. The prompt was to retell a Grimm's fairy tale in the Lunar Chronicles universe - I chose The Goose Girl.On a trip to Earth as the new Lunar ambassador, Alexandria is betrayed by her own maid. Seeking refuge, she befriends Scarlet and her grand-mère and becomes the goose girl. Then Xan discovers she can glamour the wind.All characters and setting are from the amazing Marissa Meyer, I claim no credit or ownership. :}





	

I left Luna the day after Queen Levana killed my father.

He worked late in the regolith mine and had broken curfew, so she forced him to slit his own throat. Forty minutes cost him his life.

Mom wanted me to go somewhere safe, and there was nowhere safe on Luna. So the next day I took her place as the Lunar ambassador to Earth, accompanied by our maid, Nali. "I told them I was too sick to continue," Mom said. She suffered from regolith poisoning for years, so it wasn't a lie. "As my daughter, Xan, you're next in line."

The position had been in our family since the start of the monarchy. I'd always known I would be the next ambassador, but it was sooner than I'd expected; I was only fifteen.

***

I grabbed Nali's hand as the shuttle touched the ground. The pilot opened the door and I took my first step on a real planet. "Welcome to Earth," he said.

I stared. It felt like I was drowning in the sky. Nali pulled her hand away from mine as I took a deep breath of the fresh evening air and realized the pilot was talking to me.

"Your hover will arrive here shortly," he said. "I'm behind schedule, so I have to go."

"Of course," said Nali, smiling sweetly. "We'll be just fine."

We watched the shuttle take off. In the distance I could just make out the skyline of Paris. I turned to Nali and found her studying me. "What?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking." She had a strange expression on her face, and suddenly I felt uneasy.

"Is something wrong?" I touched her arm and she stepped away.

"No, not at all. But I think it's unfair that you have to automatically be the ambassador, just because your mother was." She gestured to herself. "Maybe someone else is more deserving."

"It's tradition," I said. I looked to the horizon, hoping to see our hover, but there was nobody around.

"Well, tradition's overrated." Nali took a deep breath and bit her lip, like she was trying to concentrate. I found myself thinking that she was right; that she deserved the position more than I did. "You want to find a job of your own, don't you?" 

I nodded. Something told me that this wasn't right, but the thought was gone a second later.

"Here comes our hover," said Nali. "You'll want to go, before they see you."

My legs carried me away before I knew what I was doing. Hidden in the tall grass, I watched Nali board the hover, and it disappeared into the distance.

After she left, I could move again, and I realized she had glamoured me into compliance. There was no way I could catch the hover in time.

***

I walked toward the city, looking for a place to stay for the night. The sun had set hours ago and it was only getting colder. A raindrop hit me on the nose and I jumped - living under a dome on Luna, I'd never been exposed to the elements before.

I tripped over a rock and landed hard on the ground. My right leg stung; it had a long cut that started bleeding as I examined it. The rain increased and I carefully stood up, shivering. I kept walking, hoping I would find shelter soon.

A barn appeared in the distance and I walked faster. As I got closer, I saw a small house on the other side of the field, next to a hangar. Right as I reached the field, my legs gave way. I collapsed into the grass, my soaking wet hair falling over my face.

***

I opened my eyes.

The last thing I remembered was passing out in the field, and now I was lying on a bed with dry hair and clothes. I moved to sit up and winced as my injured leg brushed against the covers. I swung my legs out of bed and noticed a bandage on my right leg. 

There was a knock on the door. I froze before realizing it was probably the person who had brought me inside. "Come in," I called.

A woman and a teenaged girl entered. The girl wore a red hoodie that clashed terribly with her scarlet hair, and the woman's gray hair was pulled back in a crooked braid. "I'm glad to see you're awake," said the woman. "I'm Michelle Benoit, and this is my granddaughter, Scarlet."

"I'm Alexandria," I said, unsure if I should lie. "But everyone calls me Xan."

"We dried you off in front of the heater and I bandaged up your leg," said Michelle. "But I'm sure you're starving. Come down for some lunch, and you can tell me how you ended up unconscious in my field."

I stepped onto the cold wood floor and followed them downstairs. Scarlet pulled out a chair for me at the kitchen table and I sat down, grateful.

"You're lucky your leg didn't get infected," said Scarlet, sitting down next to me. "What happened to you?"

I paused, trying to decide what I should tell them. Michelle was clattering around in the kitchen, but I could tell she was listening. "I'm, uh, looking for a job and I got kind of lost."

"A job?" repeated Scarlet, raising her eyebrows.

I nodded.

Michelle and Scarlet exchanged a look. "That's perfect!" said Michelle. "We've been thinking about looking for some help around the farm; someone to watch the geese, mostly."

***

Later that day, I started my new job as goose girl. I was to watch for predators and make sure none of the geese wandered off. "Good luck," said Scarlet, handing me a curved stick. "They're a pain."

She went inside and I straightened up, determined to prove my usefulness.

It was a windy day and my auburn hair kept blowing in my face. I didn't have anything to tie it back, so I had to keep pushing it away. I ran after the geese, trying to herd them back together. The wound on my leg throbbed. 

After a few hours I sank down on the grass, exhausted. If it weren't for Nali, I would've had my job as ambassador instead of tending a flock of geese. For a moment I wished I were a shell, immune to her glamour, but of course then I would be dead. Nali's glamour had always been stronger than mine, anyway. I could barely control anyone. 

I halfheartedly reached out with my Lunar gift and felt for bioelectricity. Scarlet and Michelle were too far away, but I sensed the forty geese around me. One of them was wandering off, so I tugged with my mind and it ambled back. Animals were easier to control than people. 

A bird flew overhead and caught my eye. I turned my attention upward, closing my eyes and continuing to sense. A gust of bioelectricity swept by, and I opened my eyes, expecting to see a whole flock of birds. But the sky was empty.

So where had the energy come from? I could still sense it; it blew past me and tousled my hair. The wind! 

I bolted up. I'd never known the wind had bioelectricity; the teacher had never mentioned that in my glamour class. Then it hit me: there was no wind on Luna, so of course nobody knew.

I reached out and seized the wind's energy, then twisted with my mind. The wind came gusting at my face, blowing dirt into my eyes, and I laughed. I could glamour the wind!

***

After two months I felt quite confident in my goose-wrangling abilities, plus I could make the wind cater to my every whim. I had more than enough univs for a train ticket and I knew I shouldn't delay my departure any longer. So I found Michelle and told her that I had to go.

"That's a shame," she said. "Scarlet and I have enjoyed your company. Is there anything we can do for you?"

"Actually, yes," I said. "I need to talk to the ambassador. Do you know how I could do that?"

"That's easy," said Michelle. "Everyone wants to meet her, so they hold a meet and greet every Saturday. If you catch the train, you'll make it in time."

***

I stepped off the train into bright Parisian sunlight. Michelle's directions made it easy to find the building where the ambassador stayed. 

At the front of a line of tourists sat Nali, wearing a green silk top and black pants, her red hair pulled into a French twist. She signed autographs at a marble table and chatted animatedly with the guests, a guard by her side. I tried not to think about my long, messy braid or grass-stained clothes. I was the last person in line and after about a half hour, I reached the table.

Nali's eyes widened when she recognized me. "Let's take this elsewhere," she said.

Her guard promptly escorted Nali and me into a conference room and closed the door. "Now go outside and don't listen," she said. Ambassadors were required to be protected at all times, but she must have glamoured him because he obeyed without question.

She turned her back to the door. To keep her from glamouring me, I called up the wind to shield my bioelectricity. I sent tendrils of wind at the guard, too, because I needed him to stay and hear our conversation.

“I’ve missed you, Alexandria,” said Nali, smiling. “What brings you here?”

“I want my position back.” My hands shook with the effort of maintaining the wind, but my voice was steady.

“That’s interesting. What makes you think you deserve it?”

“I would never cheat to get a job,” I said. “You glamoured me into obeying you and I would never do that.” 

“I’m done with this." She stepped closer. “I wonder what they’ll do with you when they find out you tried to take my rightful position.” 

So she planned to put the blame on me. I’d guessed as much. “What would you suggest?” I asked.

“Once I tell the guards, they’ll send you back to Luna. You can meet the same end as your father.”

She planted her hands on my shoulders and went to shove me, but I twisted away. Her own momentum made her crash into the wall. She got to her feet and started toward me.

Panicking, I sent a torrent of wind at her. 

She stumbled back, tripped and fell, just as the door opened and a line of guards rushed in.

***

Countless apologies had been made, but I had refused to take my 'rightful place.' "You need a real ambassador," I told the guard who, thanks to my glamour-blocking wind, had overheard the conversation between Nali and me. "I happen to know the perfect person."

Nali met the same fate she had planned for me, and my mother took a shuttle to Earth two weeks later. From then on, Mom and I were dual ambassadors. 

Truthfully, I hadn't minded my days as goose girl at Benoit Farms. It was there that I'd discovered a new use of glamour, after all, and I liked Scarlet and Michelle. So on my days off, I took the train to their farm to visit and tend the geese.

The only thing missing was my dad. I knew I'd never get over that. I wanted to make sure nobody ever met his fate again. So when I began to hear rumors of a revolution, I vowed that if they were true, the goose girl would be the first to join the fight.


End file.
